SEOUL: North Korea conducted a combined tactical drill on Saturday and Sunday to have related units master the procedures of implementing tactical nuclear attack missions, the country’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said Monday.

Training to let the unit confirm the procedures of a tactical nuclear attack was conducted on the first day, and a ballistic missile launch exercise simulating a tactical nuclear attack took place on the second day, the KCNA said, apparently pointing to Sunday’s launch of a short-range ballistic missile toward the Sea of Japan.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who led the two-day drill, was quoted as saying that his country can fulfill the important strategic mission of war deterrence “only when the nuclear force is perfected as a means actually capable of mounting an attack on the enemy and its nuclear attack posture for prompt and accurate activation is rounded off to always strike fear into the enemy.”

The drill explicitly showed Pyongyang’s readiness to use tactical nuclear weapons as a means of a pre-emptive strike.

On the first day, North Korea checked the chain of command for a nuclear attack, and on the second day, it fired a tactical ballistic missile tipped with a mock nuclear warhead, according to the KCNA.

North Korea accurately exploded the missile above the target set in the Sea of Japan within its 800-kilometer strike range, confirming the reliability of nuclear explosion control devices and detonators fitted in the warhead, the KCNA said.

The drill was also aimed at countering the ongoing U.S.-South Korea Freedom Shield joint exercises.

The North Korean drill shows “our tougher will to make an actual war response and send a stronger warning to the enemy who expand their war drills for aggression and take a series of military actions strong in their offensive nature,” the KCNA said.

JIJI Press